The term "troll" has, over the past few decades, evolved for some into an ideology with a distinct methodology. Seen by many as "Internet Eugenics" - ridding the tubes of idiots, people who take themselves too seriously, bloggers and the like. Others even go to the extent of idealizing it to the point of qualifying the likes of Socrates as such; clearly outreaching from the more common consensus that trolling as we understand it originated on the Internet. However you see it, trolling has become omnipresent on the Internet; for the better and the worse.

Nowadays, term has often been bastardized and brutally abused by retards (See: Bronies) to describe someone with a differing opinion about something, and by 14 year olds with trollface avatars who believe themselves to be TROL MASZTERSZ, although the primary usage is still presenting intentional logical fallacies or behaving in seemingly irrational ways with the intention of provoking a humorous and boisterous response.

You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response.

Trolling is a art

Origins

Truth

Stalin was a pretty gifted troll.

Many people have put forward various different possible origins of the term "trolling". The most widely accepted one is that it started in the late 80s/early 90s on alt.folklore.urban where it meant reposting questions and topics that had been repeatedly overdone. In this sense, it was a harmless way of “baiting” new users into replying and making arses of themselves. Trolling here coming from the fishing technique where you bait one or more lines and slowly reel the fish in if they bite. Much like trolling for fish, making the bait appealing by upkeeping suspension of disbelief is the key to success.

What Trolling is not

Over the years, cases of amateur failtrolls and users on the losing side of an argument have created a misconception about what trolling really is. Some interwebs users think that now yelling TROLO and UMAD will make them a successful troll. Many 13 year old boys have found the internet an excellent place to get on their soapbox and spout unsolicited opinions, which is the major cause of arguing on the internet. Trolling both sides, though entertaining, is a very easy form of trolling and thus is often used by newer, inexperienced trolls. As it's become commonplace, it's also become a common excuse for a user who loses an internet argument. To say that they never intended to win the argument the entire time is a justification for their inadequate argument skills.

Since then, the definition of trolling (through eliciting an argument) has devolved into anyone trying to elicit an argument altogether. Though this technically fits the definition of the troll, the intention behind arguing is what makes the difference. Remember: to be considered a troll, the user must have had the intention of trolling from the beginning. If there isn't some subtle hint of the intention to troll during the argument, the user is either a failtroll or a fail arguer.

Additionally, as stated before, many interwebs users only choose to argue as an excuse to spout their unwanted opinions. By failing, the troll has given that user an excellent excuse to do so; causing the troll to backfire and thus troll himself.

Trolling used to mean something

Traolololololo

How to identify a Troll

Despite the small size of each of them,trolls pose a great threat to mankind and all the internets by possessing incredibly high numbers

Most people who identify as a troll are, unsurprisingly, 12 year old kids with nothing of value to contribute, people angered by a ban, or users upset that no one pays attention to them. As expected, the only harm they do is make themselves look like butthurt idiots. Typically their posts are overly abusive, conspicuous and badly written. The topics are generally well known to be abused by Trolls and the poster would never be able to pass for genuinely interested in their question because of it. A good troll on the other hand is usually extremely difficult to out: knowing what they're doing, they are able to bluff through a whole argument, giving the impression that they're truly interested in the topic while watching the whole community go down on the thread in a mass of flame wars, ad hominem attacks and much generally much anger.

Generalization of Trolling

This is what good trolls do to forums.

Trolling usually consists of posting content that is intended to spark up a Flame War, Shitstorm, Internet fallout and the like, mainly for the entertainment of the Troll and his/her "friends". Another reason advanced by the infamous Jason Fortuny of the "Craigslist Experiment" is that trolling is a means of "finding answers about human behaviour". Of course, Jason is an idiot and generally shunned by most internet users so his opinion is neither particularly valuable nor interesting. Whatever the motives are, observing or posting a good troll is just simply exciting.

The content varies widely; it can be anything from yet another new troll face/endless variation of a meme on 4Chan to the classic vim vs. emacs on the Ubuntu forums. Whatever is used, an important aspect of trolling consists of knowing what you are doing: there’s nothing more tiresome than some kid trying to be cool OTI by being overly aggressive and refusing to admit that he failed. Generally speaking, a Troll is finding a way of initiating angst in idiots for amusement and in the hope that anyone allowing themselves to be hurt by someone on the other side of the planet will leave the Internet.

A good tip to remember when trolling is to make people rage without actually giving away too much. Think of it as standing on a line, but not crossing it. Make your arguments/responses/questions seem logical and reasonable yet almost extremist. Tyyp1NG liek a fucktard and using 1337 can help when trolling a Grammar Nazi or other retards, if you don't overdo it.

Admitting to trolling will also nullify your status as a troll, making you a failtroll. The troll is by and large a silent hero in the shadows and lives by this honor; he is Anonymous. There can be some liberties made towards close acquaintances of the troll who may already know his intentions.

College Students Show How To Deal With Trolls

Different kinds of Troll

Hater

Almost exclusively used on Youtube, a hater (Or h8r) is a troll who searches for USI vloggers, cry babies or influenceable kids and picks out the logical fallacies in their political vlog, calls out overly dramatic attention whores on their obvious flaws, and ridicules kids on their lack of understanding of the "real world"

An impressive amount of user videos consists of people complaining about haters.

Griefer

As the haters are on Youtube, the griefers are present in most video games. Spamming the in-game chat window, rule-breaking, teamkilling, camping, spawnkilling, and hacking are some of the preferred means of trolling a online gaming community.

Troll for a day

When a board suffers from group think and stagnation, sometimes one poster will create a new account and log in to tweak the other posters into a flame war. The Troll for a Day will announce they are a TFAD (TFADing) and everyone will congratulate the regular after getting over their murderous impulses for bringing the community back to life (<--- this last section is totally gay and sounds like failtroll happenings). Some argue that TFADing is a valid tactic for a board administrator to re-spark interest in a community and should be applied when the situation requires it as long as all suspecting members are silenced in a swift fashion.

Posters on message boards who have experienced this behavior will immediately try to label all newcomers as "TFADs".

Notable Trolling Organizations

Many trolling organizations have been created over the years. Some are/were brilliant, while the vast majority were terrible. Typically seeing the same users over several groups, trolling organizations tend to gently merge over time.

The Gay Nigger Association of America™ was created in January 2003 by timecop (President and CEO) and jesuitx (Vice President) to protect the rights and interests of all men of African and Homosexual persuasions. Starting their operations in a grandiose manner: trolling Slashdot using ASCII art logos representing the organization and satirical news releases pertaining to the contents of Slashdot articles, the GNAA, currently under the presidency of Murdox following weev's incarceration, continues to push the frontiers of trolling ever further.